Investment in logistics, port and industrial development wanted
Egypt is seeking more cooperation with China and lessons from China to improve its industrial development, Egyptian Minister of Investment said on Tuesday.
China is currently the 23rd largest foreign investor in Egypt, with overall investment of $548 million, but "the target should be as much as 10 times or more, and [the investment sum] should be in the top five or 10 [among our trade partners]," Dalia Khorshid, Egypt's Minister of Investment, told a media briefing in Beijing.
Khorshid made the comment during the two-day Joint Egyptian-Chinese Ministerial Committee meetings, which ended on Tuesday. The committee is making preparations for the coming G20 summit, which is set to take place in September in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province.
The ministerial committee meetings will also discuss 15 specific capacity-building projects, which are the top priority for both governments.
During the visit, a business delegation from Egypt will meet with counterparts from more than 15 leading companies in China that are interested in taking a greater stake in the Egyptian market.
According to data provided by the Egyptian government, there are 1,269 Chinese companies operating in Egypt, and 68 percent of their capital is in the industrial sector, 15 percent is directed to financing services and 9 percent is in the information and communication technology sector.
Cooperation between China and Egypt can be divided into two parts. One is linking infrastructure, such as transportation, and it is good for Egypt's development. The second part is "to see how can we use the Chinese experience to increase our industry's development," Egyptian Minister of Trade & Industry Tarek Kabil said at Tuesday's press briefing.
Egypt is improving its investment environment and policies and hopes to enhance its development through cooperation with China. And it hopes to attract additional investment in the areas of logistics, port and industries development, Khorshid noted.
However, when asked if the Egyptian government could take some measures to shorten the visa process for overseas labor, Khorshid said it's making process and working on that issue, but "it still takes time."
"There is no single Chinese project that has been stopped because of a labor shortage," Kabil said.
Since 2011, Egypt has been coping with the aftermath of revolutions that led to the overthrow of two heads of state.
The ensuing mass protests have caused seemingly intractable economic problems, the Xinhua News Agency reported earlier this month.
Xinhua said that Egypt has set its total investment target for the fiscal year of 2016-17 at 531 billion Egyptian pounds ($59.76 billion), representing 16 percent to 16.5 percent of GDP.
